Arkansas State University part of ‘supercomputer’ development
by October 22, 2022 11:44 am 832 views
Nine faculty members from Arkansas State University are helping lead development of a “supercomputer” project involving eight education and research entities in three states.
Dr. Xiuzhen Huang, professor of computer science and director of A-State’s Center for No-Boundary Thinking (CNBT), is serving as one of the co-principal investigators for the project, which has attracted major funding from the National Science Foundation (NSF).
Researchers at Oklahoma State University (OSU) secured the Major Research Instrumentation (MRI) award of $4 million from NSF to develop the new supercomputer, and OSU is contributing $1.7 million.
“The purpose of the project is to significantly enhance the computational infrastructure for the Oklahoma-Arkansas-Kansas (OAK) region,” Huang explained.
The OSU-led initiative is a joint effort with A-State, Wichita State University, Kansas State University, University of Tulsa, University of Central Oklahoma, University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center, and the Great Plains Network.
The primary advantage of a supercomputer is its ability to process huge volumes of research data very quickly, even as it is being generated. This capability opens up new possibilities for data analysis and scientific discoveries.
Huang added that some of the research areas that can benefit from the high-performance computer include bioinformatics, including genomics, metagenomics, and transcriptomics; agriculture, including crop modeling, environment and ecosystem modeling; classical and quantum calculations of liquids, proteins, interfaces and reactions; cybersecurity and social network modeling; renewable energy research; seismology; sociopolitical landscape modeling; and high-energy and medical physics.